Among the currently available hearing aids, ITE (In-The-Ear) type hearing aids which are respectively inserted into an external auditory canal are manufactured by individual soldering of volume control components such as microphones, amplifiers and receivers with elongate electric wires as shown in FIGS. 1A and 1B.
In the case of analog hearing aids which are currently available in the market, amplifier terminals are comparatively simple and thus it is not difficult to manufacture hearing aids through individual soldering.
However, in the case of digital hearing aids which are recently available in the market, amplifier terminals becomes large in numbers and complicated. That is, in the case of the digital hearing aids, approximately twenty elongate electric wires are soldered in each digital hearing aid. Accordingly, experienced soldering experts are needed. Further, in the case of ITE type hearing aids or enddrum type hearing aids which are respectively deeply inserted into an external auditory canal, part of functions of the digital hearing aid due to an increase in the number of the electric wires should be simplified.
Since the currently available analog or digital hearing aids should be manually soldered with a number of elongate wires, faceplates which are essential for manufacturing the hearing aids are manufactured in and supplied from China or East Asian countries where manpower cost is still cheap. Thus, if a method of automatically producing faceplates in a mass-production process of hearing aids is developed, a manufacturing cost of a faceplate becomes low and thus a manufacturing cost of a hearing aid becomes low, to accordingly enhance a competitive power of selling the hearing aid. Therefore, a technology of mass-producing faceplates for use in hearing aids should be needed differently from the existing hearing aid faceplate manufacturing method.